Counterreform end of XIX century. - History of domestic state and law

Counterreform end of XIX century.

Emperor Alexander II was killed by revolutionaries on March 1 (March 13) in 1881; on the United States throne, his son Alexander III, who began to pursue a policy to curtail the course of reforms of his father, ascended.

Zemstvo in the 1880s. was viewed as a hostile force, and therefore the government did everything in its power to strengthen the administrative principle in the administration. In these years, tsarism condescended to arbitrary actions of governors in relation to the zemstvos, without attaching importance even to gross violations of laws.

Not limited to the tertiary zemstvos, the government was nurturing plans for creating new principles in local government. Attempts to implement them can be traced first of all in the Law of July 12, 1889 on Zemsky district chiefs. In the twenty-four provinces, 2,200 zemstvo plots were created (four or five for each county), which were to replace the world mediators, the county-level peasant affairs of the presence and the world court, which was preserved only in Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa. At the head of the plots were set up zemstvo chiefs. Zemsky chief, who could only be a hereditary nobleman, had the right to introduce any issue for the consideration of the volost meeting, to suspend any decision of the latter, passing it to the district congress, which for the most part consisted of the same zemstvo bosses. The zemstvo chief claimed all the officials of the village and volost, could fine them, arrest them, and remove them from their duties. Particularly painful in economic, legal and moral relations was for the peasants the right of the zemsky chief to impose on them at his discretion fines of up to 6 rubles. and to arrest up to three days (peasant self-government officials - up to 5 rubles and 7 days). In addition, the zemstvo boss could suspend any verdict of the volost court.

The law also contained a rejection of a number of fundamental provisions of previous years. If the introduction of the post of world mediators at least declared an agreement between the peasants and landowners, the zemstvo chiefs had to solve these problems administratively from the class positions of the landlords. If the world courts were created on an electoral basis, then in the new conditions the trial was carried out by a person absolutely independent of public opinion.

In connection with the liquidation of the world court, the importance of volost peasant courts increased, which existed contrary to the principle of unconditional court. The special status of zemstvo officers meant an arbitrary strengthening of the power of the nobility over the peasantry and other unprivileged estates. This was reinforced by the fact that the posts of zemstvo chiefs could only be occupied by persons of noble origin who had a considerable land qualification or an even higher qualification for other types of property. With the variety of functions of zemstvo bosses, the law did not require them to be highly competent, and even those who had "unfinished home" could be admitted to this post. education, which was a kind of connivance to their arbitrariness.

Continuing the offensive against local self-government, on June 12, 1890, tsarism publishes a new Provision on provincial and district zemstvo institutions, in which elements of class nature are strengthened. During the elections, the first, landowning, curia became completely noble. The number of vowels from it increased, and the property qualification for the nobles dropped. The electoral qualification for the urban curia increased sharply, and the peasant curia was practically deprived of independent representation, because the elected zemstvo vowels were subject to the approval procedure by the governor. All these measures were of the nature of a counter-reform, which further increased the representation of the nobles. In the 1890's. nobles, along with officials, accounted for 55.2% of vowel district meetings and 89.5% of provincial assemblies. However, under the conditions of the bourgeois degeneration of the nobility, the strengthening of its positions had no appreciable political significance for tsarism. As before, zemstvos were in opposition, and the Zemstvo-liberal movement even became more active, as counter-reforms expanded its basis.

The reactionary circles were not satisfied with city self-government, which, from the government's point of view, had the disadvantages of the prevalence of business and industry and the lack of governmental authority. Starting to revise the current state of the city, the government decided to limit the influence of city owners in the organs of self-government. Initially, it was suggested that the electoral qualification be determined not only by the possession of immovable property, but also by the degree of property security. In practice, this meant that rich voters could be included in the number of voters, among whom were many influential people - lawyers, publishers, managers, brokers, successful specialists, etc. Attracting them to the city government did not mean any kind of democratization, but the transition to new electoral bases somewhat widened the circle of voters, which in itself no longer suited tsarism. In an attempt to weaken the elective principle, on June 11, 1892, the government issued a new city clause, all of which were reduced to restrictions. If previously all the owners of immovable property used the right to vote, the new law established a qualification for them: in provincial cities - 1 - 1,5 thousand rubles, in other cities - 300 rubles. As a result, the number of voters declined three to four times and became quite insignificant. So, in Moscow the number of voters has decreased from 23 671 people to 7221, in Kazan - from 6930 to 894 people. From the law, the provision was withdrawn that the city self-government acts independently. The practice of interference by the administration in the affairs of self-government was officially fixed. The government received the right not to approve the city's elected by lawful way. In such cases, the duma had to choose a new candidate. The city heads and members of the municipalities were declared state employees, which in many respects placed their personal well-being in dependence on service successes, which were assessed not by voters, but by high-ranking officials. The number of meetings of the Duma was limited. All ego is a far from complete list of changes introduced, which opened new channels for strengthening administrative evaluation and dependence on the government of city self-government bodies. The new situation in the city, as well as the provision on zemstvo institutions, had the character of a counter-reform.

Along with the political reaction for the period 1880 - early 1890's. characteristic is the strengthening of the police regime and the introduction of additional restrictions on the press. Thus, on August 14, 1881, a special Law was adopted-the Regulations on Measures for the Preservation of State Order and Public Peace, which, although it was adopted as a temporary emergency measure for three years, was extended at any time until 1917 at the end of the period.

The main method in the fight against the revolutionary movement was vigilant police supervision, which aroused a wave of denunciations, provocations, arrests. The staff of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes has increased, new ones have been created

gendarmerie institutions - offices for the protection of order and public safety (in short - security offices), which were not subject to local gendarmerial authorities and could act completely independently. Their duties included the prevention of strikes, the struggle against street demonstrations, meetings, the monitoring of suspicious persons, educational institutions, societies, clubs, etc. The security offices had significant states of the "guarded outdoor service". - secret agents and especially secret employees (provocateurs). A large amount of money was spent on the creation of this device. The security departments had a network of provocateurs inside the workers' and revolutionary movement. The development of political investigation led to the creation in late 1882 of a secret police. An important instrument of tsarism was a specially created foreign agency, which monitored the emigre revolutionaries, and stirred up public opinion of European countries against them.

In the context of the reaction, a serious hindrance to punitive activity was the judicial statutes of 1864. With the introduction of the Regulation of August 14, 1881, publicity in political cases was limited to publicity. However, the government went even further, aiming to neutralize the opposition sounding of political affairs. By a decree of February 12, 1887, the Minister of Justice was given the full right to close the doors of any court sessions. With the cessation of the publication of reports on political processes, the press was publicly closed. From the jurisdiction of the jury were seized all cases of violent actions against officials. In fact, having destroyed the principle of the irremovability of judges, tsarism created for itself more favorable opportunities for exerting administrative pressure on the courts. All these measures were not something new in the government's activities, for they only legitimized a practice that, contrary to the law, had been applied in political processes before.

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